Mounir el-Motassadeq

Mounir el-Motassadeq (3 April 1974-) was a Moroccan member of the al-Qaeda Hamburg cell in Germany.

Biography
Mounir el-Motassadeq was born on 3 April 1974 in Morocco, and he immigrated to Germany in 1993 before moving to the city of Hamburg in 1995. He studied electrical engineering at the local technical institute, where he befriended Said Bahaji and became a member of the Islamist Hamburg cell. From 1996 to 1998, he worked as a janitor at the Hamburg airport, and he had access to secure areas and aircraft. In May 2000, he flew to Turkey and then to Afghanistan, having a short stay before returning to Germany. He was wiretapped by German security services due to arousing their suspicion, and in June 2000 he was discovered to be living in the same apartment as Ramzi bin al-Shibh and Abdelghani Mzoudi on Marienstrasse in Hamburg. In February 2003, he was arrested after evidence piled up indicating that el-Motassadeq was involved in financial transactions with the 9/11 hijackers, and in 2007 he was sentenced to 15 years in jail.